Porsche 356 History

The
Porsche 356, introduced in 1950, put this renowned German automaker on
the sports-car map. But even though the 356 was the first Porsche
sports car, it was far from the first sporting Porsche.

Ferry and Ferdinand Porsche with the Porsche 356/1 at Gmund.

Ferdinand
Porsche was born on September 3, 1875, in the Austrian village of
Maffersdor. Turning away from his father’s metalworking business, the
young and imaginative Ferdinand pursued a fascination with electricity,
and in the 1890s, even designed an electric car. His engineering acumen
was obvious, and extended to the design of aircraft engines. After
World War I, Porsche began to focus on the subject that would become
his life’s passion, a pursuit that began with the design of a small,
efficient open-two-seat sporting car, the 1.0-liter Sascha.

Porsche’s career path, however, drew him in the 1920s to the German
automaker Daimler, where he helped design powerful 6.0- and 7.0-liter
racing engines for expensive Mercedes-Benz classics such as the
fabulous SSK. His small-car dreams never died, though, and would find
an outlet with his design for an inexpensive air-cooled rear engine car
built in the 1930s at the behest of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. This
was the original Volkswagen, the people’s car. It was known almost from
the start by its nickname, the Beetle. World War II derailed the
project after but a handful were produced.

Ferdinand Porsche aided in the construction of this early VW Beetle prototype.

Porsche
and his design firm, which included his son, Ferry, turned their
attention to war production. They would emerge from the conflict
battered but intact. VW went on to thrive under its own ownership,
while Porsche and his son Ferry returned to that first love and created
a small sports car based on the VW Beetle design.

The
Porsches had already proved adept at building good sports cars from
ordinary components, but it would be left to Ferry to realize the first
production Porsche. As he related to CAR magazine’s Steve
Cropley in 1984: “During the war I had an opportunity to drive a
supercharged VW convertible with about 50 horsepower, which was a lot
of power then. I decided that if you could make a machine which was
lighter than that, and still had 50 horsepower, then it would be very
sporty indeed.”

Ferry
and Karl Rabe, an associate from Ferdinand’s days at Daimler, again
turned to a VW-based sports car in 1947. Ferdinand had been imprisoned
by the French for a brief time after the war on charges relating to his
design work for the Third Reich. By the time he rejoined his son and
Rabe in August, they had the specifics firmly on paper. Ferry recalls
his father being “very interested...of course. He took an interest
in everything, but didn’t have the energy anymore...I had to
assume the risk myself.”

Check out the complete
story of Porsche
cars, including these fabulous models:

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